11 March 2008

This has potential - this is only one single image (4.1mb) but if you used quadtiles then the quality of the image when zooming would be preserved - this requires pre-processing and can be time consuming when dealing with high resolution images.A Free Application 'MapCruncher' will produce tiles that can be used.The extra item here is that you are not restricted to using raster data.Vector Data can also be used.

A Very Generalised Dataset but when you zoom in is much faster at displaying. Notice the less generalised data when zoomed in (this demo is purely to show the process).When in 3D mode the Vector lines are rasterised on the fly.

Limitations - Polylines only - Polygon generalisation can be more demanding.

Combined the Four Products (Sliverlight, MapCruncher, TileVectors and Virtual Earth) and you have a nice production line for creating your own online/offline interactive maps.